"Come on, Ben," I pleaded. "Why do you have to do this every time we try to have some family time? You know we hardly ever see each other. It's the holidays, for God's sake."

"There are better ways to celebrate than eating defenseless animals that were cruelly raised and slaughtered on assembly lines," he said firmly.

I snapped. "Oh yeah, Ben, well tell me, just why is it wrong to kill animals? They're not humans, they can't reason like we do. A lot of them are predators too. We need to eat. Why not eat them?"

"Because animals have nervous systems, and can feel pain, just like us," he explained like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "And their intelligence is widely underestimated-"

"Yeah?" I shot back. "Well, vegetables are made of plant flesh, aren't they? Plants can react to stimuli. Isn't that pain, for them? Sounds to me like eating vegetables is just as arbitrarily wrong as you make eating animals out to be."

"It's not the same thing-"

"Yes it is. And fruits are just plant abortions, how could you eat that? In fact, while we're on the topic, why are you BREATHING AIR right now? You're destroying the oxygen just so you can live. How selfish."

He looked at me stubbornly.

"Look, if you're so opposed to meat, what's with the fish there," I asked him.

"These? Oh, these are rubber fish. They're ac